The Trail We Blaze
by Skamikaze
Summary: AU. The Supercomputer can cut through the fabric of reality with its Quantum Power, allowing transitions between Universes. Sadly, the means to control the passage is not limited to anyone, and XANA has taken complete advantage of it. Naruto/Aelita.
1. Chapter 1

**I'll say stuff after the first chapter. Probably.**

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><p><em>The first time<em>_ that they had met in Konoha, he had mistaken her for Haruno Sakura._

_Naruto was only a genin at that time__, and only newly graduated, so he didn't know that she shouldn't have been there by any means. If ANBU had found her before him, she would have been arrested and carted off to Ibiki before she could even feel her arms being twisted behind her back._

_It was amazing that she was where she was at that time, Naruto reminisced, but perhaps her resemblance to the Haruno had protected her._

_If only he had known where she was from and what she was in the first place._

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><p>It's always embarrassing to ask Sakura-chan out on a date. Not because of the way she glares at you or scowls until your blood curdles –even though she's adorable all the same– But mostly because of the after-shock of getting sucker-punched in the face.<p>

Now imagine me asking Sakura-chan out on a date… and then realizing that she isn't actually Sakura-chan, just another girl who looks a lot like her, and who's barely holding back a laugh.

Ya know, I'd rather get sucker-punched in the face.

Well, it was an unpleasant surprise when I actually did mistake someone else for my teammate. And it happened when I was asking the look-alike for a date. But it wasn't so unpleasant to hear her say hesitantly: "Well, I'm not this 'Sakura-Chan', but if you really think I should taste this… Ramen, then sure. Why not?"

Well, I wasn't going to miss out on a chance to educate someone in the culinary masterpiece that Ramen was, especially not someone who was coming along willingly. So I led her out from the street in front of the hokage tower, and we set off towards Ichiraku's.

It was a bright and sunny morning, like every other morning in Konoha. The only major difference was that I actually had a date.

Sure, it wasn't Sakura. Or someone I knew well. Or someone I had even seen before in my entire life. But hey, I'm not picky. Besides, the girl was kinda pretty; in a weird, wintry way.

The girl…

"Uh… Heheh. I forgot to ask, what's your name?"

She paused for a moment, face blank; almost slowing down for a fraction of a second, before she looked back, smiling.

"Aelita."

"Oh, that's a pretty name. Mine's Uzumaki Naruto. Greatest Ninja in all of Konoha, and the future hokage!"

Well, I wouldn't be me if I didn't shout that around every once in a while. It helps in boosting my confidence.

"I'm sure you are," she replied, still smiling genially.

Looking at her a little more closely, I saw that she had these face tattoos that looked a lot like those the Inuzuka had, blood-red tracks tapering down from under her eyes, which was a little weird considering that there were no pinkettes in the Inuzuka.

Pink hair was a strict Haruno trademark.

And her dress seemed very foreign. A pink skirt and shoes that seemed more like socks, with a vest that seemed like a pink and green version of the chunin jacket.

"So Aelita, why haven't I seen you around before? Where do you live?"

"Oh…" Another pause, another time she almost stopped.

"…I'm not from this village."

"Really? Then where did you come from? Another village?"

She seemed at a loss for words… I mentally face palmed. Of course she was from another village. Stupid question.

"What's it like? Is it nearby? I just came back from a mission to- Oh look, we're here!"

The smell of Ramen was wafting out from under the stall, and beckoned by its siren call I hurried over to it, letting Aelita follow behind. Looking back briefly, I noticed her sigh in relief. Maybe she wasn't used to the heat of summertime Konoha.

She took a stool next to me, resting her gauntleted elbows on the table and looking around at the shop, waiting.

It was sad that no-one I knew was walking by at that moment.

Teuchi came along a few seconds later, wiping his hands.

"Ah, Naruto! It's been a long time since you came by, where were you?"

"Hey Teuchi-san! It was on this mission that I told you about before I left, remember?"

His eyes glazed over, probably trying to remember when I'd told him I'd be going.

"It was so cool! Turned out it wasn't just a boring C-rank mission to escort an old Drunkard, It was a completely kickass A-ranked mission to escort the old drunkard! There was this missing-nin, and then- Oh wait, I forgot! Say hi to Aelita-chan!"

"Hi," she greeted cordially, waving a hand in greeting, which was weird considering she wasn't familiar enough with the Ramen-seller to gesture like that to him. Must be a village custom, I thought.

She pulled up a seat next to me and sat down, arms crossed.

Settled down, we had an awkward moment as I glanced here and there, whistling nervously while Aelita drummed her fingers lightly on the wooden table, leaning on her other arm.

I really needed more experience with girls, Damn it.

Rather desperate, I sent an unworded call for help to Ayame, who was smugly watching my discomfort from where she was cooking our order. She answered with a fond look, probably feeling sorry for me, and made a few hand-signs indicating that I should move closer to Aelita, maybe talk about something too.

Make a fool of myself, more like.

Taking in a deep breath and ignoring the sweat on my palms, I took the plunge into a wary conversation that I was going to make up on the fly.

"So… Um…" I swallowed, licking the inside of my suddenly dry mouth.

Aelita, fortunately, interrupted.

"Uh… Uzumaki? I haven't been to the village before. Can you tell me a little about it?" She asked, twirling a finger through her hair. It was mesmerizing to watch.

_Uzumaki?_ And without any honorifics at all? I decided to speak on anyways.

"The village? It's the Village hidden in the leaves, dattebayo! The strongest ninja village with the strongest shinobi that exist! And I'll be the strongest in no time!"

Aelita giggled, looking interested.

Now what to tell her about Konohagakure? Darn, I should've paid more attention to our history classes in the academy. I remembered some lessons about the fourth Hokage though, and I remembered them really well, so I decided to go with them.

"The best shinobi we had were our leaders; the Four Hokages. The fourth one died defending the village from a huge Fox Demon called the Kyuubi no Yoko, so the Third took back the title of hokage. I like the Fourth the best though, he was a real hero. Do you know that he wiped out an entire army of Iwa-nin with one jutsu? And he…"

I jumped from one topic to another, trying to see if I had any interesting dregs of Trivia about my village lying around in the corners of my mind. I must have had a lot, because during the whole of my four minute long monologue, Aelita seemed intrigued. She kept looking at me, smiling and blinking occasionally; sometimes humming in agreement.

I belatedly realized that I was screwed if the pinkette was from Iwagakure.

But she wasn't angry, so I kept talking. Until Ayame brought our Ramen. The brew was especially good; I had to close my mouth just to stop the drool from coming out. All thoughts of talking fled me and I picked up my chopsticks, telling Aelita to do the same.

While I dug in to the delicious noodles with righteous fury, Aelita grasped her chopsticks clumsily, lifting some of her Ramen and passing it through her lips.

Slowly, her face exploded into a grin, showing her teeth, and she exclaimed: "This… This is _amazing_! This feeling… The flavour, it's all just – Wow, Jere-" She abruptly stopped, hand on her mouth with a blush colouring her unusually pale cheeks.

"I mean... It's really good," she concluded sheepishly. She immediately took another bite.

"I know! It's the most amazing thing in the world! I just can't live without it!" I stared at my bowl whimsically, fixing it with loving eyes.

Ayame-nee-san gave me a thumbs-up from her seat in the kitchen when she heard Aelita's resounding laugh, mouthing 'Keep it up!'

I grinned, emboldened by my success.

I glanced over to her bowl and saw that it was already quite depleted. She must've really liked Ramen. And she didn't even know how to hold her chopsticks right.

I reached over and remedied that quickly, positioning her fingers for her in the way that they were supposed to be resting in. By the time I looked up at her face, it was completely red.

I looked down, quickly realized what was wrong, and let go of her hands, awkwardly looking away.

"Uh… Yeah. They won't slip that way," I lamely finished.

Ayame was snickering her head off. I shot her an angry glare, then resumed eating. She would pay for this later, I swore. Believe it.

The rest of our little date together went by quietly. It was noon, so there was a lot of dust in the air from the carts that went by, but the steam coming from the shop gave the air a semblance of clarity. The heat became rather stifling though, and I noticed that she was squirming and fidgeting in her seat, wiping sweat away from her forehead repeatedly.

"I never knew temperatures could get so uncomfortable…" I heard her mumble.

She needed a change of atmosphere, and fast.

Once we were done with inhaling our food, I left the money on the desk and led Aelita out into the streets, heading for a much open place where the wind would be blowing. I thought of going to a training ground; the grounds were quite like a park, and there was the added bonus of being able to show Aelita off to any present Shinobi.

But I thought of something better. Why not go to the top of the hokage-tower? The walk to the top of the hokage mountain would be too long for Aelita, unless-

"Uh Aelita, are you a ninja?"

Weird. I hadn't thought of asking her that before. Maybe because of her lack of a forehead-protector.

"Uh, no. Not really," She answered, looking downwards.

Well, the hokage mountain was off. The tower would be suitable, then. I knew of a way that even Aelita would be able to climb; there were a series of ledges behind the establishment that could be scaled.

We walked back to where we had met, walking side by side. It was still quite hot, but the wind had calmed Aelita and she no longer felt suffocated. There was a healthy spring to her step now, and she seemed eager to see more of my home village.

We climbed over from behind, evading some Ninja that were crawling out through the back windows stealthily, trading a few words with a janitor, and reading the old adds that littered the stairways and ledges. Aelita could only read Romanji, apparently, and even then she didn't understand what she was reading. I didn't ask her about it though; it probably wasn't polite to know why.

Aelita was quite secretive too. After spending about two hours with her, all I knew about her was that she was probably a civilian, didn't know how to read Kanji, wasn't from Konoha and she really liked Ramen, although she hadn't eaten it before. And she was really good at talking. She wouldn't let me ask anything about her; she would redirect the conversation before I could, and before I knew it, I would be pointing to a building somewhere in the background, telling her about what happened there, or I'd be telling her a story about my days with my team while helping her up a particularly difficult ledge.

But it was fun, even though I was curious. I figured that if Aelita stayed around for long enough, I'd wheedle the answers out of her in time, so I had fun while I could, savoring every moment of what could be called the first date of my life.

When we reached the top, Aelita wasted no time in heading to the edge, looking at the mass of buildings that stretched in every direction, eyes following the mass of people that headed about on their different jobs. Her expression was amazed; I felt a small surge of pride.

"Wow… I've never seen so many people in one place before," she whispered, awestruck.

"Your village must be really small, huh?" I asked. She turned her head towards me, fixing me with calculating eyes.

"Yes. There aren't a lot of people there," she said sadly. I was about to repeat my inquiries, but she cut me off.

"My home is very beautiful though. The forests there… I've never seen trees so tall, or a sky so bright," she chirped, pointing into the distance. I saw her finger extended towards some of the forests in our training grounds.

"They're waaaay taller than those," she teased.

"Oh, they may look small, but those trees hide the worst monsters that anyone has ever seen. Including an evil cat who's probably hiding there right now."

"Monsters?" Aelita asked, suddenly somber.

"Yup! The worst you'll ever see!" I bragged, determined to show that Konoha was the best village and it had everything to offer that her village could, possible even more.

"What kind?"

"Hmm… I've never really seen any, but Iruka-sensei told me that there are huge leeches, centipedes, spiders, and a lot of other things."

"Do they bleed when they die?"

"Huh?" This was the weirdest question that she'd asked from me. Of course they would bleed, what else would they do? Vanish into nothing?

"Of course they do. What do you mean, Aelita?"

"Oh, no reason, just curious."

"Ok…" One of the other things about Aelita that I couldn't understand had just surfaced. She was just too strange to comprehend.

We didn't talk any further. For some reason, she was happy to simply gaze into the distance, tracing the contours of the ledge with her finger tips.

Then she started humming a tune in a voice I knew most girls would kill for.

Whoa.

She might be weird, but she was amazing all the same. It was as if her voice had some deep, primal meaning, something that made sense even if there were barely any words to express it. It was touching, and the emotion it carried was tangible. She sung of contentment, her voice resounding in the air while the sun went further down.

She glanced at me once, eyes shimmering happily, and I smiled back at her.

Who was she? And why was she sitting here with me, of all people? It made no sense, and I was confused. The urge to grab my ears and groan came over me as I was simply unable to think of any explanation to her identity.

Why wouldn't she tell me? Why did she insist on all the anonymity?

…Why did she stop singing?

"Uzumaki, I have to go now."

Time had flown, and it was sunset.

"Why do you keep calling me Uzumaki, Aelita? My name's Naruto."

"Oh? But you said-"

"Uzumaki is my family name."

She apologized, laughing sheepishly.

I sighed, the day with all its pleasure and confusion making itself known.

"Are you sure you have to go? It's kinda early- I can take you home if you want, where do you-"

"Thank you Naruto, but I can take care of myself," she interrupted me once again, placing her hand on my shoulder. "It's nice of you though, thank you. Thank you for showing me around, and… I'll see you tomorrow, ok?"

My crestfallen expression instantly lifted itself into something brighter, and I stood up, helping her along.

We made our way down, Aelita nimbly navigating through the steps that had given her so much trouble on our ascent. Our feet touched the ground eventually, and I caught her hand to stop her from a particularly violent stumble.

We walked on as we were, unwilling to break contact.

"Well… See ya, I guess," I muttered, swinging her hand back and forth lightly.

She swung her hand too, building up some momentum. A large, rapidly spreading blush covered her cheeks then, spreading throughout her face, her neck…

"Good-bye, Naruto." She dropped my palm and walked off briskly in the general direction of the village gates.

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><p><strong>If you review, try to focus on any holes in the writing style and flow of this story; like any shifts between first person and third person POVs.<strong>

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**X.x**


	2. Chapter 2

**This story is quite AU with pairings, with Canon elements, with the science behind Lyoko and Aelita's relationship to it... But the only point of divergence from Canon was when Franz Hopper found that the Dimension Tunneling seemed to come along as a side effect to the super-computer's existence. I don't like Author notes that give plot details... Just thought you should know about what this story is.**

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><p><em>He was sweet. And he reminded her of Jeremie sometimes. Always tripping over himself to help, answering everything in overwhelming detail…<em>

_But the similarities ended there._

_Where Jeremie would be insanely clever, Naruto was relatively simple._

_But where Jeremie would be withdrawn and speculative, Naruto was warm and happy._

_If only she had known of the chaos her coming into his life would cause._

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><p>Jeremie was passing quickly into the realm of the unforgivable. The blond idiot just wouldn't stop saying stuff about Naruto!<p>

And he just had to insinuate _that_ before she said 'Goodbye' to Naruto…

_What happened A__elita? Why didn't you kiss him?_

Jeremie was doing it. Again.

_I mean, if you had, Sissi would have agreed on calling this your v__ery first, nearly perfect date._

"Nearly perfect?" I said through clenched teeth. I wasn't really curious, I just wanted to be able to talk in proper words and blow of some of my steam. I couldn't be mad at Jeremie for long; He probably got bored doing nothing but sitting in front of the screen, looking at the world through my eyes.

The boredom would have been multiplied because he couldn't understand a single thing that was being said. He had remarked that the scripts and the language resembled Japanese; he was going to make sure Yumi and Odd came with him to the Factory the next time that I left Lyoko.

I'd had to sing out a brief summary of my day to Jeremie just to make sure that no-one looked at me like I was crazy; It had already happened when I had walked up to a pale, somber, serious looking teenager and had asked him where I was.

In French.

He walked away with a scathing snort. I somehow understood his words though (The things they try to get my attention… Hah). Jeremie, after thinking about it, told me that my Creativity might be kicking in.

And I had been using it ever since, although in a way that was completely unfamiliar to me at first.

Where I would have visualized something simple, like the ground extending outwards, or a monster freezing solid, the world would respond to my voice when I sung.

Now, I was visualizing whole packets of meaningful sentences while singing. Surprisingly, no-one noticed anything odd about the way I communicated.

_Well, you know Sissi. She always fin__ds something wrong, _Jeremie said, resuming our previous topic of conversation.

I forcefully squashed any feelings of resentment I was still harboring towards him, determined to not let any negativity mar my first 'out-of-Lyoko' experience.

I laughed a little, thinking of Jeremie's bubbly and slightly psychotic friend.

I loosened up, realizing that my body was feeling tired and stressed out. Even the feeling of fatigue seemed to be mildly pleasant to me.

"Don't show the recording to her, okay?"

_Why not? She'll love it._

"But she'll never let me live it down."

_Oh come on, She__ isn't- Look out, silly!_

I barely avoided colliding with a 'Ninja' who was running down the sidewalk with inhuman speeds. He muttered an apology without slowing.

I placed a hand over my rapidly beating heart- another recently discovered novelty- and whistled in relief.

_Watch where you're going, will you?_

"What are _you_ here for?"

He snorted, but remained silent. He was probably analyzing everything he had gathered from my sensory input during my short stay in this reality.

_The ninja was cool.__ Kinda like Ulrich, but without any programs_, Jeremie admitted grudgingly.

He never liked it when his programs were upstaged by anything.

"This world isn't as shallow as it seems, Jeremie. Naruto told me about things that are… well, Incredible. Too incredible to exist, actually. I'm worried about what XANA can do with the potential this place has."

…_As much as I hate to say it, I don't know what's happening. This is the first time the towers let you pass through. And XANA has not been seen anywhere in this universe yet._

It was true. Whenever XANA tunneled away, the Universe Ulrich, Yumi and Odd would arrive at would be devastated or in a condition of absolute disorder and paranoia.

"Hmm…" I made my way towards the secluded waterfall I had first appeared in, the waterfall that served as the retranslation site to Lyoko.

I made my journey as slow as possible, absorbing everything about this world that I had never known before. The stars above… It was incredible the way they kept following me wherever I went. And the moon was just… indescribable. There was no way to compare this to the sky in Lyoko, a sky that was shockingly static now that I had something else to compare it with.

And the way the Ramen had tasted… It was the first time I'd tasted anything in my life. Or eaten anything, for that matter. It was amazing, and I couldn't wait to have another bowl.

And it was the first time a touch had felt so vivid, the feelings that came with it so… strong…

I stopped the thought before Jeremie could somehow get a hint of it. He was good at figuring out what I was thinking. I still don't know how.

_So__? What do you think?_

"About what, Jeremie?" My heart probably skipped a beat in fear. I wasn't familiar with how it worked though, so it might have been normal behaviour.

_About living in the real world! How do you like it so far?_

"It's- It's absolutely amazing, Jeremie. I had no idea that I was missing so much."

_I know. That's why we'__re trying to bring you out of Lyoko… But it hasn't been working out so well…_

His regret was genuine. The sleepless nights he spent trying to find a way to devirtualize me spoke for themselves.

"It's okay… Besides, I'm here, aren't I? This is the same thing," I said, trying to comfort him.

_That it is…_

Our mental conversation was interrupted by when I saw two pedestrians walking on the other side of the pavement. One was a raven-haired boy; _the _Raven haired boy from this morning, and following him was a pink-haired girl. The boy looked peeved; the girl looked oblivious. She was talking to him but I couldn't hear the words.

He looked at me weirdly, like he expected me to say something to him that he didn't want to hear.

I just quickened my pace, trying to hide the blush of embarrassment that had manifested itself while ignoring Jeremie's chuckling.

They looked awfully like Naruto's descriptions of his teammates.

_She looks just like you! Go say hi._

"Jeremie!" I snorted. "She looks _nothing_ like me."

One look-alike was enough. Taelia had created enough chaos for a lifetime.

I walked onwards, now very close to the waterfall. The buildings of the village had thinned out, and I could see the beginnings of the meadow-like surroundings of the waterfall.

_They looked familiar- Kinda like Ulrich and Sissi before they… You know…_

"How're they doing, anyways?"

_They're all-right; you just met them a few hours ago_, Jeremie scoffed.

I just hummed in reponse.

Crickets were starting to chirp, and the sky was growing dark. It was only a matter of minutes before I reached the waterfall.

I walked on steadily, drawn towards the sound of falling water. The absence of a voice in my head soon became unbearable after a few minutes; as odd as it sounds, and I started talking again.

"So how does this work, Jeremie?"

_He had to go for a while, _a grinning, feminine voice replied. It was a voice she seldom heard in her mind; it was one that she usually encountered on Lyoko in person.

"Yumi! What are you doing at the factory?"

Me_? We're _all_ at the factory now, Aelita. We came to see you back into Lyoko._

"Oh…" I was at a loss for words.

_Hey, It's the first time you've been out of that supercomputer. There's no way we could let this go by without celebrating._

I could imagine Yumi flipping her hair behind her head with pride.

_Here, talk to Odd, he's been __driving us crazy asking about you the whole day._

I could imagine Odd jumping around Yumi, pawing at the mike she wore.

_Hey Princess! I heard you went out on a date today! What was it like? Huh? H__UH?_

And then another voice interrupted him; a voice pitched higher than Yumi's.

_Gimme that, you little- Hey, Pinky! I'm not gonna let you go until you tell me _every_ little detail. I'll be waiting for you! Muahaha- Hey! I'm talking to her, you jerk!_

This was going to go on for a while. I walked the last few steps into the glade where the waterfall splashed merrily into the river flowing beneath it; I took a seat over a nearby boulder, still not knowing exactly what to do.

_Hey._

"Hello, Ulrich. Nice of you to come by."

_Haha. There was__ nothing else to do, and Everyone's here right now; I don't know how Einstein can stand the noise. _

"Oh. By the way, please protect me from your crazy girlfriend, Okay? I really don't want to be interrogated."

_Relax. __She probably won't chase you to Lyoko, you know she's doesn't like the place._

"Yes, Lucky me," I chuckled. "Where'd Jeremie go?" I asked, a little annoyed at the way he was leaving me hanging.

_Giving the Supercomputer a physical__. _I heard some laughter in the background; Odd's dominating over the rest's.

_He wants to make sure nothing goes wrong during your retranslation._

"Tell him to hurry. There're a lot of weird insects here I don't want to be around," I joked. I didn't really mind the Insects, they were interesting and they gave me something entertaining to watch.

…_And he's back. See you on Lyoko, Princess._

Smiling fondly, I shook my head at their 'Sense of Duty' to their friends. From the normal person's perspective, our whole group had barely known each other for around 10 months. I knew better; our actual relationship stretched to nearly twice that amount of time, what with the frequent returns to the past.

We had known each other long enough to willingly sacrifice ourselves for each other; that was the level of trust we had.

_Okay Aelita. You'll need your __Creativity__ to open the portaltower's top. It'll appear like a huge hole in the ground. Then you just jump down it. Hopefully, we'll see you safely inside the Carthage Sector. Everyone will be there, so if one of them finds you, they'll take you to the rest of the group, and then to the Forest sector, _he explained.

_It's a little different from what we've been doing when the rest of us went to other worlds_, he added while I walked towards the base of the waterfall.

_Usually, you opened the towers from the inside and closed them on __everyone's return. This time, you're opening them from the outside. I would say be careful, but I really don't know how you can do that. Good luck._

Well, that just radiated good expectations, I thought ruefully.

I got to work; I sung for Lyoko to open to me, visualizing the appropriate tower in the 5th Lyoko sector, hoping that it would be translated correctly into the reality morphing power that my Creativity was.

My eyes were closed, as they usually were when I was being 'creative', so I didn't see any doorway open. I heard something though. The sound of the waterfall splashing into the river beneath was replaced by a dull, echoing roar, a sound that was extremely faint and far-off. Startled, I opened my eyes to see a portal.

Right underneath the waterfall. All the water was pouring down the wound in the universe.

_Now would you look at that?_ Jeremie spoke, on the verge of laughter. _The first living things from this world to go to Lyoko will be fishes!_

"You know it doesn't work like that," I said petulantly.

_I do, but still…_

"Here goes nothing," I sighed for the sake of dramatic flair.

I jumped, used to the pseudo-feeling of disorientation that it was possible to feel on Lyoko, but the enhanced sensation of my stomach jumping into my throat was new.

It all stopped when I left the bounds of that world. I fell, twirling through the data-paths, streaming down the rift in reality, finding more ways to describe my sojourn through the tower-links of Lyoko…

I thought of what someone like Naruto, someone completely desensitized to the extra-ordinary by the incredible occurrences of their own world would think of this joyride. Not much, I guessed.

All of a sudden, the 'virtual' tunnel opened up beneath me and I fell into a tower; hopefully in the one that was located in the Fifth sector of Lyoko. I gingerly made my way out, prepared to make an evasive dash back into the tower-

It was quite unnecessary, of course. Amidst the purple background and the shifting crystalline walls, my friends stood, some smirking proudly, some looking at me significantly. Even Sissi had come along.

They all had a look that seemed to scream: _Spill_.

Everyone had a Sissi in them, I thought as I smiled.

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><p><strong>Yay. I'm guessing that this story is mildly interesting to those who've read it... Anywho, although I don't absolutely NEED your feedback, it would be nice to have it, all the same.<strong>

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	3. Chapter 3

**Not edited or proof read.**

**Yayy.**

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><p><em>She came again. Every day, she came back, eager to do something new.<em>

_And something new we did._

_I still hadn't introduced her to anyone else I knew, and people started asking where I was every evening._

_It only took a few days for her to be seen though. Thankfully, when that time came, she wasn't alone with me._

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><p>Right in front of the Hokage tower. Yup. I'm standing still. In one place.<p>

It had become a little habit of mine; staying in front of the building until Aelita showed up. The rest of team seven left to attend to their own devices after the customary debriefing to the hokage that came after the day's D-ranked missions.

I waited, even though it took about an hour for her to come. And it usually became very hard for me to stay in one place for that long. But once she came, the wait was ably compensated for every time.

I let my mind roam over the last day, frowning subtly. Aelita had come, dressed the same way as usual, coming from the same direction she always came from. Big surprise. We'd gone to one of the training grounds, and Aelita had leapt onto the wooden training logs instantly, leaping from one to another with unnatural grace, jumping from tiptoe to tiptoe. Even Ninja couldn't do it the way she did.

I'd asked her about what she was another time. She had just smiled and continued jumping around.

I'd sighed, more than a little frustrated.

My theories currently ranged from her being a bloodline scion forced into hiding by Konoha or some other village, to her being a foreign civilian who thought that the Inuzuka clan-marks were pretty… or her being a runaway from the circus.

But her voice steered my suspicions to the first idea. No-one could have such an inhumanly mesmerizing voice without it being a Genjutsu.

I told myself that I was going to ask her. I steeled myself, every day, preparing myself to confront her about this, and threaten her with not seeing her ever again if she kept her anonymity.

But I never could bring myself to do that. Somehow I knew that if I said it she still wouldn't tell me anything and I would lose her forever.

_Damn. This dating business is trickier than I thought._

I saw Aelita coming closer in the distance, and I quelled my disgruntled thoughts, making sure that I was as cheery as I usually was for her sake.

But she wasn't alone today.

A girl nearly a foot taller than her was walking besides her, a girl with black long hair and porcelain white skin. She held herself up like royalty, and she was dressed like a… Geisha. Her sight briefly evoked the image of a Hyuuga, only a lot less somber, waaaaaay more colourful yet still just as confident. And her eyes were black instead of pale lavender.

She walked on with Aelita, laughing with her and putting her arm around her shoulder. They looked like exceptionally good friends, what with the way they talked; eyes full of laughter, gestures of happiness tossed every which way.

I didn't like her much, I decided.

And once they were within a few metres of me, I walked forwards to meet them myself.

"Aelita...?" I asked unsurely. She just looked up, smiled and gestured to her friend.

"Ishiyama Yumi," she introduced, straight off the bat.

Good for reducing awkwardness, that particular style of conversation was.

"Uh, hi…" I said, looking at the general vicinity of the Girl's face.

All I could think of was how she was looking down at me effortlessly, what with her five inch height advantage.

"…Yumi-san."

I promptly stood on the other side of Aelita after that; probably for the whole day.

"So who are you?" I asked, pretending to be more interested in the fence on the other side of the road.

"I'm a companion of Aelita. I live with her and I came here to visit her," came a VERY formal and VERY stiff reply.

She talked like one of those Daimyo's Assistants that came around to check on the academy every now and then to express their discontent. I caught myself a moment into my weirded-out glare at her, and jerked my head away.

"Right… And I am Uzumaki Naruto, the greatest Ninja in all of the five elemental nations and the one who is destined to be the hokage."

Yumi tittered for a bit, and I had a feeling that she had not understood the particular angle of sarcasm I was going for. Maybe she WAS used to being eloquent and scary.

"Don't talk like that Naruto, you sound creepy," Aelita reproached.

"Fine, fine," I placated.

She smiled and started talking to Yumi, telling her about all the things that she had seen here and what she was expecting to show her today. The raven haired 'friend' nodded, sounding a little glazed and mesmerized before replying in her snobby tone and accent.

Man, what was with these people? It seemed as if Aelita and her associates were nothing but a bunch of Aliens, from the looks of it. If things got any weirder, I would have to resort to darker and more effective methods of extracting information.

With a grin, I realized that Yumi would not be safe from me the same way that Aelita would be.

_Heheh. Sweet information, here I come._

But first, Aelita wanted to go to Ichiraku's.

Ramen took precedence over all other objectives, and I heartily approved of Aelita's initiative. She took my hand, lightly, as she was wont to do, and I squeezed hers to show that her priorities were Naruto-approved. Even if I would have to pay for the whole thing.

Yumi followed, slightly apprehensive for some reason.

I noticed why; walking in front of us with eyes closed disapprovingly was a teenaged Hyuuga. I looked back, and the resemblance between the two was indeed uncanny.

He passed us by. I could hear him snort disapprovingly.

But I glanced backwards after a while, and the Hyuuga was standing with venous eyes, face ashen and mouth open. Facing us.

He started walking away, and I paid it no mind after that. The guy couldn't have been staring at us; we weren't that surprising.

* * *

><p>A wholesome and expensive lunch later, I took the both of them to a training ground.<p>

"I think we've been here before, Naruto," Aelita muttered.

"I know, we were here yesterday. Don't you remember?"

She just hummed back. She did that a lot.

I came here because even though Yumi wasn't a ninja, she was a combat-enthusiast, or so she put it. She had said that she would show me her weapon of choice and I was really curious. It was highly unlikely that she would use a sword or a dagger; I couldn't see one on her earlier. Although she looked like someone skilled with such a weapon.

I kept theorizing. I even asked Aelita, but she just said that it was a surprise and told me to hurry up.

We got there, and Yumi revealed her instrument of destruction... A fan.

_Figures._

I was going to laugh. At least I was until she sliced a rock in half in front of my eyes.

I'd watched with open-mouthed awe while Aelita shook her head, and Yumi had acted as if it was of no great consequence; like she was used to being stared at with admiration.

Said a lot about her. And her fans.

Then-

"Dynamic entry!"

-Lee happened, somehow, through some weird quirk of fate.

The scream broke the Geisha's composure horribly. I could sympathize, it was enough to send shivers down my spine too, though for a different reason.

A barrage of Kunai swept into the middle of the field. Right towards Yumi.

She used her fans as a shield and moved them in front of her, and the rushing knives were deflected away, some landing near us, some falling to the ground.

Out of the trees jumped Lee, eyes closed, mouth open in a yell and leg extended so that he'd land straight in front of the Fan-wielder.

A high pitched note sounded out from beside me; the next thing I knew was that Lee had slipped, quite devastatingly, and his face came to rest – inch by dragging inch – right in front of Aelita's feet. Who, at that moment, was giggling irreverently.

The victim raised a shaking arm up, lifting himself laboriously.

"Naruto… Such unyouthful trickery… will not go…"

He glanced upwards, unfortunately.

"…Unpunishhhooh. Hellllo, Sakura chan!"

Wasting no time, I picked him up by the scruff of his suit and dragged him over to some trees nearby, trying to ignore the struggles he made in his pursuit of 'youth' or whatever he was mumbling about.

"Listen Bushy brows. I really like you, okay? But you have to stop doing that."

Maybe he'd listen to reason, I reasoned.

"But… But she-"

"She's not Sakura. She's Aelita. MY friend."

"…Oh."

And just like that, he left, jumping into the trees and vanishing off.

_Hmm. That was easy._

I found my guests where I had left them, Idling around and looking at their fingernails and stuff. Aelita was whistling.

I had a feeling that the awkwardness had made this place unfit to stay in, so I thought of some other place to go to.

"Come on… Let's go to the top of the Hokage monument!" I said, excitedly punching the air.

Maybe it was time to show Aelita the ENTIRE village. With her friend around, she might not feel bored.

We moved out after a hum and a snort from my delightful entourage.

Interesting things seemed to happen on our way to the top.

Hyuugas kept popping around, gawking at us when they thought we weren't looking.

Yumi shared a meaningful and slightly hostile look with me; she had noticed, apparently.

"What the hell is wrong with you guys? I finally found a few friends, Deal with it!" I screamed behind me into the open air.

A squirrel seated on a branch cursed and left. Nothing else reacted.

I felt mildly stupid when I saw Aelita climbing with us; despite the long way there, she wasn't exhausted at all.

And there I was, thinking she couldn't make it.

And any obstacles that came up; Aelita just gracefully went past them like there wasn't something blocking the darn way. She climbed over giant boulders like they were normal stairs, crossed tangled thorn bushes like they were made of water, and when a Lion popped out of nowhere, it just walked away after seeing her, yawning.

That was just not possible for a normal person to do. It was as if the world itself was going out of its way to be kind to Aelita.

That was it. I was going to find out one way or another. Once we reached the top, someone was going to start talking.

We reached the top, and surprisingly enough, no one was even panting. Everyone was still as energized as they were before; Aelita was positively skipping around in joy, admiring the wind, the view, the stony texture of the monument itself…

"She seems awfully skippy, doesn't she?" I sidled over to the black-haired girl who was conveniently standing still in one place, out of her friend's earshot.

"Uh… Yes. She is always… Awfully skippy," she awkwardly stuttered.

"I wonder why though. How can someone climb a whole damn mountain and still be so chipper? Unless she's some kind of ninja…" I slyly mentioned as I walked around her.

"We are not ninja," she denied. "We just know how to fight."

"Reallly?" I purred. "Then how do you explain-"

I flourished towards the singing Aelita, whose very presence seemed to send all the nearby birds into some weird cacophonous song.

"-her bloodline?"

"Bloodline? What is a blood-"

She stood stock still for a moment, her confused look freezing, then abruptly drew her fans out.

I ducked, instinct urging me that she was completely crazy and was going to slice me apart for prying.

I heard a slight thud behind me though; when I turned, I saw a member of the ANBU kneeling with a trail of dust extending behind.

The upper half of his mask broke off and fell onto the ground, revealing brown eyes. Menacing, hateful brown eyes.

"Naruto… I don't like this…" A trembling voice cut through to my ears. Two ANBU were surrounding Aelita, preparing to grab her hands and shackle them into some kind of restraint. Only empty air was behind her; she was standing at the edge, and was inching backwards.

"Get away from her, you idiots! You'll kill her!" I shouted, but they might have been dead for all they heard.

Yumi said something incomprehensible; in the next second, Aelita was surrounded by a red glow, lifted into the air, and deposited right next to us.

They caught each other's arms and started to run.

"Hey! Are you out of your minds?" I screamed at the stupid masked ninjas who had completely ignored me to run after the girls.

_Damn it Damn it Damn it…_

I made a handseal and summoned a batch of clones, and they spread into the forest, aiming to find and guide my friends out of here. This was completely absurd, and I was going to make sure nothing happened to them until I was absolutely sure that they deserved to be chased and caught.

I, personally, rushed into the forest with my clones, no coherent plan in mind as of yet.

Why would Konoha think they were a threat? They were CLEARLY not ninjas, even if they knew how to... fight…

Doubt creased my forehead.

What were they anyways? What kind of people randomly appear into a village, have mysterious and unexplainable powers and won't tell anyone about them?

Enemies, obviously, my ninja-academy trained mind made a jump I didn't want to believe.

I ran along, jumping from tree branch to tree branch, trying to think of the easiest way to get the hell out of the forest, trying to ignore the sting in my throat.

_Betrayal really hurts._

I heard a twitter echo out from somewhere behind me; my clones had been engaged. I redoubled my efforts to make it in the general direction my two erstwhile companions had headed off to…

I made another group of clones, just in case. Damn, but these trees were hard to navigate through. I ran and I ran, air brushing past me, branches rustling from my passage. Then I ran some more. And I kept running.

The absence of activity began to disturb me after a while, and I had this nagging feeling that I should have encountered SOMEONE by now, ANBU, Aelita or Yumi.

And did I see that forked branch before?

I slowed to a stop onto the ground, skidding and sending leaves and branches scattering into the undergrowth. I looked around, smelling the dusty smell of the trees just for the heck of it before I actually got down to business and did something more effective to find my targets.

"AELITA! YUMI! Where the hell are you?" I screamed at the top of my lungs like a lunatic.

To hell with the ANBU. They seemed pretty intent on ignoring me anyways.

To my surprise, I heard a few garbled mutters sound out from right behind me. I turned, kunai already in hand… The sounds were still coming from right behind me.

I twirled once more, and the noises still seemed to come from my blind-side.

I paused, freaked out, until a hand shot out from the ground and grabbed my ankle, dragging me into the Earth.

"Auughhh-!" My shriek was interrupted as the ground crumbled from beneath me, and I plunged through into… A completely rectangular room made of mud. Filled with four different people, Aelita and Yumi being two of them. Aelita's hand clamped my mouth shut, and I resumed my freak-out session.

"Shush!" A boy with short brown hair said. Brown hair, with brown eyes. Menacing brown eyes.

"What the- you're that ANBU!" I reached for my kunai, intent on rooting him out of our little hideout, but Yumi's hand grabbed mine and she hissed, "NO. He is a friend."

The 'ANBU' just turned around and sat down on a rock, ignoring my presence.

Aelita sang a little and the hole my entry had made sealed itself shut. The light from the sun faded away, leaving my eyes blind momentarily. Then I caught the light coming from a flashlight a disjointed hand held.

My eyes shifted upwards to the owner of the light-source to a blonde-haired… boy? Cat? Thing?... that was waving his hand at me immodestly, shouting something that was complete gibberish.

Yumi snapped at him in another incomprehensible ream of words, and the boy suddenly looked apologetic.

"Oh, sorry about that. You do understand Japanese though, right?" The thing continued, rubbing the back of its head with an overgrown paw.

"Japanese? What's that?"

"Uhh... Never mind. So whazzup? My name's Odd, and this here's Ulrich-"

The grumpy 'ANBU' waved a hand at me.

"-and you know the rest. Never met you before, but I'm sure I know you very well, what with the way that Aelita's been talking about you-"

"Hey!" Aelita grumbled, cheeks tinged pink.

"-and the Ramen you always-"

"Ramen?" My ears perked, plugging me back into the conversation and pausing my outraged and confused ramblings of rage and hurt for a moment.

"Yeah! Ramen! It's kinda weird though that you'd take the stereotypical poor college student's food to be your favourite! I mean, you REALLLLLLY couldn't find something better?"

_...That's it._

I was seeing red by the time he ended. I walked over, grabbed him by the scruff of his neck (oddly furry and purple) and growled my displeasure.

"Oh, not that I don't like it. Ease up, would ya?" He sidled out of my grasp and sighed.

"So now what Aelita?" He continued, addressing the pinkette. A pinkette I had darn near risked my ninja life for a moment ago.

I decided that now would be a good time to irrevocably loose it.

"Now what? NOW WHAT?" I exploded. "Will you frickin tell me what the hell is going on here?"

Ulrich tweaked an eyebrow before looking away. The others winced and I felt even worse at their guilt.

Oh, they were gonna get something to wince about, all right.

"First, _she_ shows up in the village and she won't tell me who the hell she really is, then her 'friend' comes along and all of a sudden the ANBU are after you and you're hiding in a room underground! And it turns out that _he_ is pretending to be one of them! And what the hell is up with him?" I ended, pointing at each of them when I referred to them and ending with… Odd.

I noticed that everyone was glaring at Aelita and she was wringing her hands and looking down.

"Naruto, I-"

She was interrupted. By three sandle clad feet bursting downwards into the Earth above me.

* * *

><p><strong>...<strong>

**A short explanatory chapter coming next. Hopefully with less delay.**

**X.x**


	4. Chapter 4

**I finally got off my lazy-ass ass and wrote this. Yayy you, yayy me... Woohoo.**

**I have a beta now, and as surprised as I am that someone would actually want to waste their time on this, he(I think so) sure is handy to have around. Thank you, fastrthnwind._  
><em>**

* * *

><p><em>Interesting things seldom happened in Konoha anymore.<em>

_Thankfully, it wasn't a bad thing at all._

_Of course, being a nearly unparalleled repository of knowledge meant that he wasn't as happy about it as other people were, his curiosity having nothing to stimulate it._

_Until word of her reached him._

* * *

><p>Smoke. It rose into the air, trailing slowly, like a small river of upwards-moving water. I tried breathing it in, but the dust in the air apparently thought it prudent to come with, and the results were not pretty for my lungs.<p>

Not that it mattered. I was just finding ways to amuse myself; hands folded over the small pile of paperwork that I was supposed to be doing while I played around with other things.

The pages were crisp and smelled of fresh ink, a scent that I had less than pleasant associations with. It smelled of lethargy and restlessness to me.

The stack looked slightly out of place; new and unmarked paper under old and pockmarked hands.

"Sigh."

Nothing seemed worth my time any more, truth be told. I was never a man of routine, I was never meant to be one. The fact that I was still there, shuffling mundane information while my heart and mind were elsewhere was a sign of a lack of a proper replacement, nothing else. The moment someone else raised his hand for the position of Hokage and was deemed acceptable would be the moment I left this office for good.

Hmm... My desk seemed rather bare of stuff nowadays. There was just a picture of Konohamaru in the corner, the ignoble stacks of paper, and a few books I'd decided to re-read when no-one would be bothering me.

I looked at everything, and restlessness began clawing at me, urging me to find something, anything better to do. With no other option left, I brought out the ultimate entertainment device in creation out from a drawer in my desk and set it up on the ample space of my desk top. Yup, this was it. The Hokage's Super Special TV set, a.k.a. my crystal ball.

The ANBU-on-the-wall snorted in good-natured humour, possibly exasperated at the frequency of my drawing the ball out of its spot of recluse. I didn't blame him; he couldn't see what I was seeing no matter what he tried, his position forcing him to stay rather stiff at times.

Hmm... Now who would I spy on with it? Whose life would I eavesdrop on from afar? Heheheh.

There's always Konohamaru to rely on for a little comic relief, and my bored mind tuned into his chakra frequency. A little concentration, a little chakra, a few seconds, and... Ahh, there he was; stalking Naruto like he usually does at this time of the day. Apparently he was just standing behind a trashcan in an alleyway – darn kid had no sense of hygiene – looking outside with strange glee. His friends were nowhere to be seen.

What _was_ Naruto doing anyways?

With a different chakra frequency in my mind now, the chakra I pushed into the little ball brought forth a new image, a picture of one of the most entertaining people I have had the good fortune to meet in my lifetime. He strangely enough, was doing nothing mischievous or interesting whatsoever.

He was somewhere outside my office building, jumping and walking around impatiently, looking like he was waiting for something or someone. Either that, or he'd been made to wait there forcefully-probably running an errand for that pink-haired team-mate of his, bless his poor kind-hearted soul.

That did raise the question of what Konohamaru had looked so positively gleeful about.

I hazarded a glance out of a window that would give me a vantage point of where Naruto was located, and, true to my expectations, he was still there. I signalled to the wall-ANBU to look at the alleyway behind my office building and report back. A few seconds passed after which he came back and nodded, informing me what I needed to know – there was nothing interesting happening anywhere. Konohamaru was going to get a long talk when he got home; the boy really needed better hobbies.

The crystal ball, staring so innocently at me, had lost its appeal. Letting Naruto keep his affairs to himself, I actually directed my attention to my work; the sooner I got it over with, the better.

Of course, the work of a Hokage was never finished - moments later, a paler-than-usual Hyuuga came into the room with the demeanour of a person having seen a ghost, or possibly a genjutsu of one.

I compared his face with the faces of the many Hyuugas I knew by sight and recognized this one as the Genin Rookie of the year from last year; a good Shinobi, but a horribly dull person with no entertainment value whatsoever. Well... Everyone couldn't be perfect, nor could I expect them to be.

"Neji Hyuuga, I presume?" He nodded slightly. "What brings you here?" I searched my desk for any candy that might be lying around to give to him, not wanting to be impolite. One fell into my hands from somewhere up above me. "Thank you ANBU-san," I muttered silently and offered it to the child sitting in front of me. He took it wordlessly.

"Hokage-sama, I apologize for intruding on your working hours-" Hah. 'Working' hours. "-But five minutes ago I witnessed something truly disturbing."

He seemed truly disturbed; his pale-lavender eyes twitched restlessly - and Hyuugas are schooled to the extreme about the value of moving and using their ocular organs.

"Continue..." This seemed interesting. Who knows, maybe today might not be so boring after all - I mean, oh no. The village just might_ actually_ be in danger. Not that I really want it to be, heheh... Heh.

"I saw Naruto Uzumaki walking around with two seemingly civilian girls that I had never seen before."

Naruto's made friends? I can see why that may be unusual news, but to be so disturbed about it was... Sad. I felt bad about giving the Hyuuga that peppermint now; Candy is a waste on people like him.

"They in themselves were not troubling, but both of them had no Chakra whatsoever... And one of them had a strange chakra network that was blackened so much that that I could not discern any traces of her tenketsu whatsoever."

"Hmm..." So it wasn't about Naruto's friendships after all. It was something genuine to worry about.

"If I know the particulars of the Byakugan correctly, then not being able to see tenketsu means one of three things: that they have either been destroyed, are completely overshadowed by foreign chakra, or the person in question has a severely diseased Chakra network. It's one of the basis of jyuuken, is it not?"

"Yes, Hokage-sama, but what really alarmed me was that this particular chakra was _interacting_ with Naruto's. It seemed to reach into a locked store of Chakra somewhere in his stomach through their interlocked hands and free a different and distinctly orange chakra from that location. Then it and the black chakra mingled and... pulsed."

The Hyuuga's 'expressionless' face shifted through a myriad of emotions during the entire briefing, a briefing that, I must confess, shocked me horribly. Tainted chakra was extremely rare, extremely dangerous and only originated with those having a Demon or other External Chakra source sealed within or on them, judging from the results of Orochimaru's twisted experiments.

And to hear that this Chakra was interacting with Naruto's... No, the _Kyuubi's_ Chakra so intimately...

It was very interesting... and VERY dangerous. So dangerous, in fact, that I myself would have to intervene now. A part of me was overjoyed, and another was apprehensive. Naruto had, once again, dragged himself into another lethal situation, and heaven knew what would become of it.

The crystal ball, still sitting on my desk, became useful once again. Neji sat, twisting his hands under the table, and I offered another ANBU-supplied peppermint to him. He accepted it again, but this time with a small thank you.

I focused on finding Naruto once more, and I found him sitting in Ichiraku's shop, drinking his broth happily. Sitting next to him were two girls, both I presumed to be the ones Neji had mentioned.

"Does one girl have pink hair and the other look like a geisha?" I asked him. He nodded, saying yes.

"Which one of them has the Chakra you spoke of?" I questioned.

"The pink-haired one," he replied plainly.

"What did you notice about the other?" I finally inquire of him. "Nothing that I haven't mentioned, Hokage-sama," he stated again without hesitation.

They were sitting there, looking like a comfortable little party. Naruto occasionally laughed and said something to them, and his company responded very enthusiastically. Well, one of them did anyways. I looked at them for a few more seconds, noticing the subtle interactions that revealed much more about a group than outward appearances would indicate.

What I noticed didn't bode well for the village clown. Naruto and the Pink-haired girl were not merely friends, it seemed. Oh, the cunning deceptions of enemy kunoichi - luring innocents by the force of their emotions, betraying them in the blink of an eye and not even flinching – it was truly despicable. She would have to answer for a lot when the ANBU brought her in.

"Neji, I'm assigning an impromptu B-ranked mission to your team. Assemble them, and perform these tasks within five minutes. Then stand by for further orders," I said even as I wrote the tasks for him on a sheet of the very paper I was so despondent to see in the morning.

Assemble all Hyuuga ninja not on missions; instruct to follow Naruto and wait for orders to engage.

Separate Naruto momentarily from the group; observe behaviour.

I signed the make-do document, verifying it as a bona fide mission objective.

"Keep Naruto in sight at all times and assist the ANBU that I will send who will give the order for your clan to engage the two. I will be observing the proceedings myself as we can take no chances on this mission. Be very careful, Neji."

"Yes, Hokage-sama." The boy went back through the doors, hurrying on his way to complete his new directives.

"Come ANBU-san. Things have just gotten Interesting."

The entire course of action for the shinobi on this assignment was to keep the targets in sight and then capture them when the order was delivered. It was an easy mission by any standards, but the risk involved, being unknown, made all the difference right then. There wasn't much for me to do but observe; for now at least. If anything went wrong I'd rather not leave any stoppers unopened, and that's why I was there with them.

Besides, Gai's team could use the experience. My wall-ANBU knew how tiring his requests for youthful missions were, and he also knew exactly how many times I had listened to that very request.

Neji's team assembled in a few minutes and they traced Naruto's steps to a training ground, with Neji doing nearly all the work while his teammates followed him around apathetically. After that it was a simple matter of a distraction until Naruto went with Gai's protege and left the two suspects alone.

It seemed that our suspicions were not unfounded.

A boy about their age and another otherworldly humanoid creature appeared in front of them out of thin air and conversed with them momentarily. Both were armed, their weapons in a battle-ready state - a cause for alarm in itself.

What could they be planning?

Their very movements appeared to be charged with sizable energy, and by the look of how things were going, they were more than just a group of children. Yet nothing could be more deceiving than their looks, at that moment. I couldn't sense a single shred of any kind of intent emanating from them, which meant that they were either masters at suppressing their chakra, or they simply had no chakra to speak of. I confirmed this with my wall-ANBU, and received an answer in the affirmative. I set my attention to the field again when I noticed that the two newcomers had disappeared.

Neji seemed to have heard what was going on, and I gave myself a reminder to ask him exactly what had transpired. Soon afterwards, Naruto came back, and Lee rerouted his way back to his team after circling a suitable distance away from the targets.

Meanwhile, Neji observed the other side of the page his mission statement was written on and raised his eyebrow before resuming stoicism. I looked over as well and...

Apparently I had given him the receipt of my Book purchases instead of a standard mission assignment form... Never mind.

_Also note to self: _Destroy all materials that may lead to the exposure of my Icha Icha obsession.

Soon the trio under observation took off towards the hokage mountain, Naruto proclaiming it quite boisterously, while the entire Hyuuga force that could be summoned lent their hand in setting up traps for the two outsiders - traps that simply never activated.

While all the clan members were figuratively scratching their heads, the ANBU made a move and tried to trap them in an illusion. A mass genjutsu was spread around the three of them where they were 'surrounded' by 'lions'... lions which unexpectedly decided not to attack the three.

It was absolutely unbelievable. They even compromised the _imagination_ of some of my best Shinobi.

As soon as they reached the top, they ended up on a precipice. The wind was blowing merrily, the birds were chirping, and all was well and peaceful. My ANBU had gotten up there as well, and were ready to capture them, if the need arose. I gave the order via communicator for two of the masked nin to engage and capture them.

They rushed onwards, showing off how incredibly speedy they were...

Surprise, surprise. They didn't manage to catch anyone, but what I intended to let happen had happened. By that time we had some measure of these people's abilities. It also seemed that they could make perfect disguises, as we seemed to have one more ANBU on the battlefield than we originally started out with.

All of the Hyuugas gave chase, but they made sure that they went unnoticed. Naruto remained unaware of the pursuit, the Hyuugas slipping past his clones effortlessly, and spread out inside the forest. They observed everything with their eyes, and they kept a watch on everything happening.

It was high time for me to spearhead the capture efforts now. The confrontation was bound to come soon, and I wanted to be there personally. It was better to handle the first interrogation myself.

By the time I reached the forest, three Hyuuga were blasting the ground open with precisely placed kicks, a blue shimmery blast echoing along with the rising dust and dirt. The earth crumbled into gravel and gave way to a small underground room.

The three of them jumped in, and not a single sound was heard except for the squishing of muddy earth by wooden sandals. When they had jumped out, they had a kicking and screaming Naruto as well as the scared, pink-haired girl in their arms, held as securely as possible.

Neji had then walked up to me and said, "There are still three of them down there that we can detect, but they are neither visible nor tangible. What should we do?"

I believe my blood froze at the mention of intangibility. The only other known person capable of intangibility was Madara Uchiha, and if these children were able to imitate power of that level and sophistication, then their abilities, as well as the threat level of this mission, may need to be completely re-evaluated.

"Keep them under observation, but don't let them know you are watching," I commanded needlessly to the ninja prodigy who had years of observation experience.

Neji nodded understandingly and walked away. Three other Hyuugas leapt into the trees and promptly camouflaged themselves. A few of the trees rustled around us and I took a good look at my surroundings, looking for anything that shouldn't be. There wasn't much out of the ordinary, and I directed myself back to the matter at hand.

I paid close attention to my recent captives, and both were acting as expected. Naruto was kicking, cussing, and screaming, both at the Hyuuga and the newcomers whom he had acquainted himself with, and the girl was nervously chewing her lip and shooting apologetic glances at said ninja, looking quite pathetic. Pity was not what the situation warranted, however. I put on my daddy-means-business face and turned to the people restricting her.

"Let her go, Damn it, Let her go!" He kept shouting at everyone he could lay his eyes on, and I couldn't believe for a moment just how blinded he could be at times, but I also thought of how loyal he was, and I didn't feel as disappointed anymore. Just sorry for him.

"She goes to Kakashi and Hiashi first. Then to Ibiki," I declared.

They would be able to give a good evaluation of whatever physical or chakra-related quirks she had.

"Take her away..."

The girl tried to struggle, to shake herself out of her predicament, but she froze halfway through. Her eyes went lifeless, her arms and torso went limp and she collapsed into a spineless mass of flesh. Confused, her captor stopped for a second and turned her face to his own. It proved to be the last thing he did.

She erupted in a mass of Black light and Dark intent. Her eyes turned black and she vaporized her restrictor's head off with enhanced punches that cut through the very air. She hit the ground so hard that the debris turned into deadly shrapnel.

We all Kawarimi'ed out of the immediate area, and once we regained our footing we headed back to her. Naruto was in the hands of an ANBU - Boar, to be exact; a precaution I thought of bringing along with me.

Naruto was completely distraught. He fought against his holder... to go and rescue the living powerhouse, presumably, but he wasn't allowed to do so for obvious reasons.

Aelita stepped out of the clearing with eyes burning with absolute fury, and she raced towards Naruto with unimaginable power. She had almost reached him, her arm stretched out towards the boy's neck. Just as she was about to make contact, a giant globe of white light surrounded everything, emanating from an unknown place and engulfing everything within its boundaries…

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><p>Ah, paperwork… such a bittersweet joy... Naruto will probably be back from his mission to the Wave Country anytime now. I wonder how he's doing.<p>

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><p><strong>May the next chapter come sooner. Hahah. It will be Jeremie's point of view, but it'll comeonly after I update my other story, so... Yeah.<strong>


	5. Chapter 5

**Well, here goes. I can't think of much to say, apart from the obvious apology for lateness, so I guess I won't increase the word count this way :P**_  
><em>

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><p><em>It was so easy for him to be hopeful about her newfound freedom for once. A week later hope was replaced by a whole different set of considerations.<em>

_The first world that she had managed to get into... The first world she had almost managed to kill someone in... The first world she actually found someone she liked... Someone not him..._

_It was a world she could not be allowed to go to now. Yet all these worries paled in comparison to what she was going through now. He almost relented._

"You really think so, Jeremie?" she spoke. From somewhere in the datastreams of sector 5, her voice came back to me, tinnily audible through the headset. It sounded occupied, as if she was communing with something else and I was but a mere distraction... I probably was, all things considered. Even her question did not have a context to it; I knew not what she was asking me about.

"Of course I do, Aelita. I'll leave you to it. The way to the forest sector's open, so go back whenever you want." She stayed silent for a long while, and I stayed where I was, hands on the keypad, waiting for her answer. An answer that, if I had learnt anything over the past week, I would be extremely lucky to get.

I mean, she had _bags_ under her eyes. In a _virtual_ world.

"Bye, Jeremie." I took that as my cue to leave, and with a few practiced jabs at some keys, a twirl of my seat, a jump to the ground and a wistful gaze behind me, I was ready to go. I couldn't say that going back to school held any point now, seeing as even there I wouldn't really sleep on the bed.

But then I stumbled on the ladder going down to the sewer and the jolt of adrenaline made me tighten my grip around the handlebars, possibly saving my life. My eyes cleared of their fatigue in one burst, reminded of how important it was to be at your best at all times. Not that I honestly believed that, but a fall, even a prevented one, makes you re-evaluate your priorities.

Maybe I would sleep today, I decided. A nice, long, 5 hour sleep. Uninterrupted 5 hours, laying down on a fluffy mattress, eyeglasses off for once. It sounded delicious... It sounded like unnecessary luxury. Both of time and materialistic comfort.

I contemplated how to best spend the next 3 hours until midnight before I tried to sleep. I thought on it, as I made my way out of the sewer, snuck back into the dormitory under the rather large nose of Jim, dodged past Yumi walking around in front of the archway leading into said dorm...

Yumi was away from home at 9:00 PM.

That alone jerked me up into greater awareness than a fall from the ladder would have. To think that her straight-from-puritan-britain-era strict parents weren't after her was hard to comprehend. Unless she'd snuck out.

Wouldn't be surprised about that.

I turned back, anyways, and paused for a moment before alerting her to my presence.

She sat on what little porch the gateway had to offer, playing with her hands. She would fold them, unfold them, intertwine her fingers, then shake them back out. An intricately crafted habit of boredom, so I knew she must've been waiting for quite a while. I walked over to where she sat and took a seat next to her.

"Jeremie." A slight shift in her curtain of hair told me she'd looked at me, but drooped her head again, maybe too tired to care about eye-contact.

She'd been oddly withdrawn for the past few days... Well, they'd all been withdrawn from me, even though they wouldn't be inclined to admit it. I couldn't just up and confront them about it, though. I could imagine how that would go...

_'Oh no, Jeremie, we would never even think of it, we're just too busy resting and... stuff. But don't worry! We'll be back tomorrow.'_

_'Oh sorry Jeremie, we couldn't come yesterday, there was this bundle of homework we had to do... Yeah...'_

Hah. I wasn't just booksmart, Goddamnit. I could tell disgust when I saw it. All that my only friends in the whole wide world were seeing me as nowadays was a jailor; of Aelita, specifically, who had been going through something akin to withdrawal symptoms.

But I couldn't let her go back, not again, not when the first time was such a failure of control. Aelita wouldn't have been able to live with herself if she had managed to kill Naruto, and now she couldn't live with herself not seeing him.

The intensity of her desire was incomprehensible... She wasn't even as smitten with this kid as Sissi was with Ulrich, for a matter of comparison. They had behaved only a little more intimately than two very good friends everytime I'd observed them, and still...

I focused on Yumi's weakened face. She was resting her chest on her knees, rubbing her temples. The closest description of her posture I could give was that she was hugging herself. Strange vulnerability in one so strongwilled.

Then again, they weren't doing all that great either. I guess they just didn't want to hang around a living ball of sadness and sorrow such as myself anymore than they had to... With a tinge of regret, I felt as if I shouldn't have thought so badly of them. They were all drawn into a fight no kid should be drawn into.

"Something wrong, huh?" I asked. She shook her head, sitting up slightly.

"I'm fine. Just stayed late for some pencak-silat practise."

"Just a friendly visit, hmm?" I chuckled at the absurdity. This was the first time Yumi had 'come by', and I knew that she wouldn't do so just for kicks. She'd drop a bombshell pretty soon... I didn't think she'd last long under pressure.

"Yeah."

Crickets chirped rather heavily in the background. The air was humid and heavy, and I noticed that I was breathing faster than usual; France sure had awesome summers. Considering that we'd had about 4 returns to the past in the last two months alone, each taking us a week back, we'd just spent 3 months in some pretty sweltering weather. The only one of us happy with it was Odd, and that only because he was used to the heat.

I dug some leftover bubblegum (there courtesy of Odd) out from my pockets and offered some to my silent companion, and chewed on some myself. Then we just continued to sit there in silence, staring at a street lamp on the other side of the road.

"This has to stop Jeremie." Yumi had finally surfaced from wherever her mind was wandering.

I pretended to not know what she was talking about.

She knew I knew though. But she stated it anyways.

"Aelita. You need to let her go back."

Oh of _course_. And suddenly Yumi could judge this mess of a situation better than I could, hmm? My left fist clenched where it was clutching the cuff of my blue turtleneck.

"I can't just- _Gaah_. Yumi, I still haven't been able to figure out why she went berserk in the first place. Risking her return would be... Well, I don't want people to die." I resolutely turned back to the streetlight, not wanting to argue this further. I was surprised about her opinion though. It wasn't like she would've been willing to consider the risk either. Her putting the happiness of a friend above other's lives was just... Not Yumi.

She sighed though, looking every bit as exasperated as she probably felt.

"She almost killed Naruto herself," she forcefully stated, looking straight into my eyes. My lower lip seemed to become extremely chewable all of a sudden.

"Don't you see what this is doing to her? For all she knows, she killed Naruto and we haven't been able to go back and see what happened after the return to the past. He just may have died," Yumi almost hissed.

We all knew that death was irreversible; even the returns to the past couldn't change the fact that a person was dead. It was something I still couldn't explain at all, and I was extremely wary to sink to religious explanations so I just steered clear of that problem.

But I could sympathize with Aelita perhaps even more than Yumi could.

I knew exactly what Aelita was meditating for nowadays; finding a way to open the portal tower again, without me.

So far she hadn't succeeded. But she was very close to doing so. And knowing what she was going through... Stopping her from reaching it by resetting the ciphers on the tower each night took a lot out of my moral fibre than I liked to give. But it was necessary.

"He didn't. I launched the program in time, I know it." I needlessly reassured her, knowing it wasn't the point of the conversation, but too tired to care.

I got up, dusted my pants and said goodbye to the silent black-haired hunched-over girl that was sitting on the porch to the boys' dorm, eager to get to my bed without falling midstep.

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><p>"-a year of trying to figure out exactly what this device truly is and I'm still no closer to truly understanding it. I mean, I figured that all it does is build a connection into a world that is only slightly dissimilar from our own, and off it goes and makes a world as different as... this one."<p>

I stopped, slightly at a loss for material to fill my video diary with. Not a huge surprise, since barely anything had happened that day, but still. I had to say something, be it speculation.

I kept rambling on.

"The first world we went to, it was exactly the same. Just the fact that France had an empire beneath it was new... quite significant, but we were still in existence. Us five, living our lives, Kadic academy..."

It was quite funny, I recalled. Even in the midst of XANA-induced anarchy, when Odd met Odd and Yumi met Yumi... Haha.

Aelita wasn't there though. Aelita seemed to be just as unique to our little instance of reality as the Supercomputer itself.

"-with Jim still being Jim, and most cultural landmarks of France present. But the super computer just wasn't there. The factory was actually still in order, and XANA had targeted the city's power grid from a location quite far from it. I can't help but think that we've been missing something crucial all this time regarding what exactly XANA collects or visits in these worlds, and what his purpose is, apart from the obvious..."

I felt a strong urge to just close up the recording equipment and call Aelita, but I couldn't bring myself to do that either. Call it nerves, call it frustration, I just knew nothing good would come of it. No matter how much I wanted it to. I hastily bit into a bar of super-sweetened chocolate; for the stress, you know. Couldn't let myself spiral into depression now. The world would collapse without me there to save it.

"My first argument about our involvement in this entire mess was with Odd, surprisingly. I proposed that we let this all lie where it was, reasoning that the people in those other dimensions did not truly exist until the tunnel was made; honestly, any fool versed in Multiversal mechanics would know that, but Odd said it was tantamount to murder. I found that very hard to agree with, naturally."

I took another bite of the chocolate bar. I looked outside the window for a moment, looking at the nearly-setted sun, and yawned. And then resumed my monologuing.

"That all changed when I found Aelita, however. Strange that she shouldn't be the first thing to greet me when the supercomputer was first turned on, but we had to find her ourselves. Buried deep into the heart of Lyoko, in the central chamber of Carthage, she was just... Sitting there. Waving her legs. Smiling."

A few seconds later I noticed that I too was smiling. I wiped the grin off my face and thought about whether or not I should continue. The bed looked awfully inviting.

"Anyways, after we found her I couldn't just shut the computer down. We had to Extract Aelita first, or else it would indeed have become tantamount to murder. I foresaw us all becoming dangerously attached to her, it would only be natural. But the things I started to feel for her..."

Diaries are a strange thing. I've always been a little afraid of storing all my thoughts and secrets in a format that other people can view at their leisure, but then again, What use would the life of Jeremie Belpois be if no one ever came to know about the things he had done? It's a sentiment I'm sure my friends would object to, what with me telling them to keep Lyoko a secret but- That's a matter for later.

"But attaching myself so strongly to a person quite literally at my mercy is ethically wrong. I mean, reversing roles, what would I feel if the one person who could rescue me is also expecting something in return? For fear of not being rescued, I would comply regardless of what I actually felt. And so the certainty of sincerety goes out of the window in this particular relationship. But sometimes, I can't help but think that despite all this, maybe she does feel something in return. Gratitude, at the very least. Admiration at most. But Naruto... Why him, seriously?"

Hmm. How petulant of me to be jealous. I needed to go to sleep, but there was so much to take into account before making decisions that it was hard to decide anything at all. To fight or not to fight? To sleep or not to sleep? To think or not to think? To let Aelita go back to Naruto's world or not? Was I even the one who deserved to make all these decisions?

My mind instantly ran in a loop of thought that it is probably sick of repeating to itself, consoling and disgusting at the same time.

Yes, I am the best person for the job. Because I'm the only one who can ensure that we don't all die, or that Aelita makes it out of Lyoko alive. Because I'm the only one who can comprehend multiversal Quantum Dynamics. Because I'm the only one who can code in trinary logic. Because I'm the only one who has the least amount of social pretences to maintain, and thus the one with the most time on his hands.

The only one, I am. How deliciously arrogant of me to presume so. But so true, all the same.

"I will continue this later. But for now, I do need to get some sleep. I must look into a program that would accomplish all that sleep does in a moment; honestly, this bodily function takes a little too much time to complete."

I shut the recording programs and equipment and lay back on the bed. I closed my eyes. The darkness at the back of my lids stared back at me. And then it was not just darkness. Flashes of the entire day swam past my eyes. Yumi, looking as if she expected better of me. Aelita, looking as if she had lost all purpose to live. Odd, screwing around. Always pleasant to think of Odd, strangely. Ulrich did not appear.

Random bites of sound dipped their way into my conscious; Yumi telling me that Aelita killed Naruto, Mrs. Hertz's last science lecture where she was wrong at least four times...

I really hate my mind. I really do. It's the most chaotic thing I have ever had the misfortune of possessing. If only I could... If only... No. Too much thinking. I needed to sleep.

I did not sleep for another hour.

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><p>When I woke up the next day, I felt as if I was reborn. It was as if someone had taken my weedy nerd-edition limbs and switched them with an athlete's. Like Someone had taken my metabolism and switched it with Odd's. Wow. It felt good to sleep.<p>

I moved around my room, rubbing my eyes, grabbing some clothes from where they were strewn under my bed, and sat on my swivel chair, finally wearing my glasses.

I felt as if I could jump ten feet high, eat a dozen plates of food. I felt like I could call Aelita with a face she'd be happy to see.

I did so. I wore a shiny new grin, polished the way only rest could polish it. But it died when I was met with silence.

Was she ignoring me? I checked on her current location in the supercomputer from my laptop. I searched again. I wiped my glasses with my sleeve, then wore them again, not wanting to believe what I was seeing.

Aelita wasn't there.

I sat and stared at the laptop for a moment while I gathered my wits about me. Having gathered them, I burst to my feet, toppling the chair and rushing out the door. It was back to the factory again, because I was more than 90% sure that Aelita had done it.

She'd opened the way, and she was already in the alternate reality.

In the midst of my rush, I couldn't help thinking ruefully that at least Yumi had gotten her wish.

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><p><strong>I dunno. Nothin' 'bout nothin'. Read and have fun, I guess.<strong>


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